Subject
Master Keys
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Date
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In "The Narrative of Arthur Gordom Pym of Nantucket" there is no master key to "shut" the novel and we all know that it is part of the puzzle to follow its different voices with their cross-references ( even Poe becomes a character). Besides, master keys which shut must also open ...
In Nabokovian novels we encounter veiled narrators and even different dictions that demand specific keys (although I find it hard to visualize old Pnin in New Wye, I sometimes hear his tormentor's voice in some of Kinbote's commentaries - but without being led to suppose any particular bond between them).
VN's mirrors sometimes insert a real image or a virtual character in a dream inside the dream scenery and our time-travel is more complicated than we may achieve when we identify successive or retrocessive "flashes". There are no winding or rewinding tapes, as I see it, because VN's "techonlogical" requirements were probably ahead of his time...).
Yesterday we discussed "bloomers and howlers" in relation to translating poetry and the options by different translator between a literal, figurative, similar-sounding or an isomorphic word. I have one or more doubts concerning special terms which I can only investigate in dictionaries and the information I need goes beyond the ones I use:
1.What does "ursine" (like a bear) indicate in that context?
2. The word "monkeys", does it merely apply to "mimicking tricksters"?
3. If the word "mongrel" is sufficient to suggest mixed breeds and undesirable crossings, why then add "trans" to "mongrelizers"? ( to distinguish these more emphatically from any "transmogrifiers" ?)
( Cf. in "Ada": 'By chance, this very morning,' said Ada, not deigning to enlighten her mother, 'our learned governess, who was also yours, Van, and who -'...'is pretty hard on English-speaking transmongrelizers - monkeys called "ursine howlers" - though I suspect her reasons are more chauvinistic than artistic and moral - drew my attention - my wavering attention - to some really gorgeous bloomers, as you call them, Van, in a Mr Fowlie's soi-disant literal version...'
Also in E.A. Poe we come across "monkeys" ( actually, an ape) in relation to the chaos of foreign-sounding voices. In his novel "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" we find that to the ears of a Spanish what he overheard was in German, but the German identified Dutch and the Dutchman identified Italian - while crime and "monkey chatter" were executed by an orangutan as murderous as certain "howlers"...
(By the way, Brazilian cartoonist and writer Luiz Fernando Veríssimo's detective story joins both Poe and Borges in "Borges and the Eternal Orangutans").
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
In Nabokovian novels we encounter veiled narrators and even different dictions that demand specific keys (although I find it hard to visualize old Pnin in New Wye, I sometimes hear his tormentor's voice in some of Kinbote's commentaries - but without being led to suppose any particular bond between them).
VN's mirrors sometimes insert a real image or a virtual character in a dream inside the dream scenery and our time-travel is more complicated than we may achieve when we identify successive or retrocessive "flashes". There are no winding or rewinding tapes, as I see it, because VN's "techonlogical" requirements were probably ahead of his time...).
Yesterday we discussed "bloomers and howlers" in relation to translating poetry and the options by different translator between a literal, figurative, similar-sounding or an isomorphic word. I have one or more doubts concerning special terms which I can only investigate in dictionaries and the information I need goes beyond the ones I use:
1.What does "ursine" (like a bear) indicate in that context?
2. The word "monkeys", does it merely apply to "mimicking tricksters"?
3. If the word "mongrel" is sufficient to suggest mixed breeds and undesirable crossings, why then add "trans" to "mongrelizers"? ( to distinguish these more emphatically from any "transmogrifiers" ?)
( Cf. in "Ada": 'By chance, this very morning,' said Ada, not deigning to enlighten her mother, 'our learned governess, who was also yours, Van, and who -'...'is pretty hard on English-speaking transmongrelizers - monkeys called "ursine howlers" - though I suspect her reasons are more chauvinistic than artistic and moral - drew my attention - my wavering attention - to some really gorgeous bloomers, as you call them, Van, in a Mr Fowlie's soi-disant literal version...'
Also in E.A. Poe we come across "monkeys" ( actually, an ape) in relation to the chaos of foreign-sounding voices. In his novel "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" we find that to the ears of a Spanish what he overheard was in German, but the German identified Dutch and the Dutchman identified Italian - while crime and "monkey chatter" were executed by an orangutan as murderous as certain "howlers"...
(By the way, Brazilian cartoonist and writer Luiz Fernando Veríssimo's detective story joins both Poe and Borges in "Borges and the Eternal Orangutans").
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm